This is a tale that will make you wonder what depths we have sunk to in the United States of America.

But above all this is a tale that is completely true.

OK, it probably won't shock you, unless you are some softhearted cretin that feels sorry for those "starving" janitors. I don't feel bad for them, because frankly not a one of them looked like they were starving. Maybe I should back up and tell you what happened, eh?

In an earlier post I described the Already Taxed to the Max rally I attended with some other stalwart and warty patriots, and this event happened afterwards.

After taking several lawmakers stacks of petitions from thousands of California taxpayers that are angry about the dems plan to raise taxes here by over 11 billion dollars, Vladimir Val Cymbal, Mister E and myself decided to wander around the downtown part of Sacramento as our plane did not leave for many hours. Val was in the mood for a root beer float, so we wandered off in search of an ice cream parlor, which we soon found was not in the vicinity, at least not the kind we were looking for but we did find a little place that sold soft drinks, sandwiches, ice cream and frozen yogurt.

So we sat down in the pleasant Sacramento sunshine and proceeded to enjoy the day, the view and the company. We weren't there too long before I saw banners coming towards us through the crowd from down the street. Let me make that clear. I saw banners, obviously carried by some people I could not yet see, coming our direction.

How's that?

Better?

OK I want to be very clear here, because what happened next was not always clear. In fact what happened next would be, if written, called illegible, but since it was spoken it was....well, I would say inaudible but the decibel level made it very audible, but still garbled. I was going to say it was unintelligible but everything these people did smacked of unintelligence.

Now that's not to say these people were unintelligent, just their actions. But I understand why they did what they did. You see, they were posing for a film crew who was standing at the side filming them. Oh wait...I jumped ahead again didn't I?

So there the banners are, coming closer and I mentioned to Mister E that something may be afoot, that something goofy this way comes because I had caught a glimpse of what one banner said and I knew we were about to see a grand display of idiots walk past us. Or at least I hoped they would.

But they didn't.

Suddenly, not ten feet from where we sat in the gentle California sunshine enjoying our treats we had 25 people in purple shirts holding signs and yelling into bullhorns in front of a set of glass double doors. And boy were they loud. Now most folks know when you have a bullhorn you don't really need to yell, but these folks weren't some of the folks that know that, and they started yelling into those bullhorns to beat the band boy. Why they wanted to beat the band boy is beyond me, but there ya go, maybe the band boy did something to them, like take their sandwiches. Oops I jumped ahead again. OK, Now Val and Mister E and myself have nothing against folks protesting. It's a very American thing to do.

If you do it in English.

But these folks weren't. They were protesting in spanish. And Val immediately let fly with a counter chant of "ENGLISH--ENGLISH--ENGLISH" and drew glares from the woman closest to us. Not being content with that he went to speak to one of the fellows that was holding a sign and told them (the woman closest to us had gone over to Val when he went to talk to the lad with the sign) that they needed to fight illegal immigration and that their protest to get a better contract was not the right way to go as illegals would only come up and undercut them causing them to lose their jobs. Or something to that effect anyway.

Now at this point I started listening to the chant, and that's when I realized that these poor janitors were starving. They were chanting "What do we want? Tortas When do we want it? Now" For those that may not know a "torta" is the mexican word for sandwich. At least that's what it sounded like to me. Of course they could have been chanting something about justice, as several of their signs said something about justice but I figure the last thing that some one who may be illegal wants is any contact with the folks that work in any part of the "justice" business. When the system works that scenario usually means someone is getting deported.

Now those folks may not have all been illegal, but generally one must learn english to become a citizen, and as I said they were chanting in spanish.

Anyway, about that time Mister E mentioned that maybe we should go in the building and ask someone what these folks were on about and maybe, JUST MAYBE see if we could get one of these lucrative janitor jobs. If I had known then what I know now you can damned sure bet your last peso that I'd have been asking for a job. Hell, janitors in New York just got themselves a contract making TWENTY TWO SIXTY FIVE AN HOUR!!!!!!

Who knew being a janitor was so lucrative? And these folks are starving and demanding sandwiches outside of an office building? Wouldn't it be more effective to beg outside of a sandwich shop?

Anyway, Mister E and myself went in the building and were shocked, shocked I tell you, to see nothing in this lobby except and empty desk, a directory board and three elevators.

At this point I realized these folks were protesting in front of an empty lobby in a foreign language and the utter futility of it make me laugh. Just awesome and completely surreal. We made our way to the building managers office and asked about the protesters, and she said yes she knew they were there but only because someone had come up and told her, that she couldn't hear them in her office. As I said. Effective.

Anyway, we decided on the way down to tell them to go home, that we had successfully taken their jobs by offering to work for less, but heartbreak of heartbreaks when we got back downstairs they had all left.

Anyway, if any of those starving janitors read this, I left you guys a sandwich in the bushes next to where your oh so effective protest occurred, and I really hope you find work so you don't have to beg for sandwiches in front of empty lobbies, but if that type of protesting catches on please let me know, as I know where there are a lot of empty buildings you can rudely yell at in spanish without interrupting a nice wednesday afternoon root beer float.